Thursday, February 26, 2004
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Good blog, funny blog
Please go here and read something very worthwhile. Mom to the screaming masses is a positively hilarious blog that just popped up on my blog-dar.
Check it out now.
(0) comments
Please go here and read something very worthwhile. Mom to the screaming masses is a positively hilarious blog that just popped up on my blog-dar.
Check it out now.
(0) comments
Thursday, February 12, 2004
We build malls and Starbucks...
It has been relayed to me by the learned and cultured folks that occasionally speak to me, that a society may be known through the buildings and architecture it produces. We all are privy to contemporary building trends in North America. In contemplating this situation in contrast with places like the church above in Syria or the new churches being built in war torn Serbia, I am left feeling kind of pathetic. I live in one of the wealthiest counties in the wealthiest nation in the world, and we meet in a converted warehouse.
Seriously, am I missing something here?
(0) comments
It has been relayed to me by the learned and cultured folks that occasionally speak to me, that a society may be known through the buildings and architecture it produces. We all are privy to contemporary building trends in North America. In contemplating this situation in contrast with places like the church above in Syria or the new churches being built in war torn Serbia, I am left feeling kind of pathetic. I live in one of the wealthiest counties in the wealthiest nation in the world, and we meet in a converted warehouse.
Seriously, am I missing something here?
(0) comments
Thursday, February 05, 2004
Devron Update
I know some of you have been praying for my friend Devron. I visited with him last night. The cancer has been putting up quite a fight, while hope remains, times are tough. He is currently on his way to Mexico for a contraversial treatment. He will be there alone for most of the 21 day treatment. The single thing that Devron needs and wants is prayer. Please remember him in your prayers at home and during liturgy. Light candles for him and his wife Michelle and two young children.
(0) comments
I know some of you have been praying for my friend Devron. I visited with him last night. The cancer has been putting up quite a fight, while hope remains, times are tough. He is currently on his way to Mexico for a contraversial treatment. He will be there alone for most of the 21 day treatment. The single thing that Devron needs and wants is prayer. Please remember him in your prayers at home and during liturgy. Light candles for him and his wife Michelle and two young children.
(0) comments
Monday, February 02, 2004
Ten Things That Drew Me to Orthodoxy:
10) Orthodoxy: A faith that one can be consumed by. Final Installment
This was perhaps the most intense, exciting and frightening time in my journey. Glory to God for Sara, this time would have been much more agonizing without her journeying along side me. When one of us was convinced, the other faced uncertainty, it was beautiful! The crux was that I was convinced spiritually that Orthodoxy was the best place to work out my salvation and sanctification. However, my head was filled with nagging doubts coming from many different sources. Friends, family and Anglican Clergy were all taking jabs at Orthodoxy. Not to mention the fact that my life long G.A.R.B. church-planting grandparents were already freaked out enough by Anglicanism. Was I taking my family to hell?
At the moment when I wanted to retreat back to the familiarity of Anglicanism, Orthodoxy’s onslaught did not let up with a penetrating liturgy, as we delved deeper we discovered an arsenal of weapons and tools prepared for a D-day-esque invasion. Saints and martyrs, askesis and ecstasy, Prayer ropes and the Jesus Prayer, fasting and feasting, birth and churching, baptism and chrismation, weddings and funerals, icon corners and house blessings, confession and penance, absolution and Eucharist. Orthodox Christianity shows up in every aspect of life and fills one at times to overwhelming levels. Not just Wednesday and Sunday, but truly all week, in your head, in your home, in your friends and your family, it is everywhere, and is therefore only to be had by those who would welcome such a consuming force.
What I had always longed for was now on my doorstep, and I had the bolt securely fastened. At this point Chesterton’s Orthodoxy was especially relevant, “People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum and safe.” Certainly, this was my defining of it as an Anglican. It wasn’t until Eastern Orthodoxy that I grasped more fully what he meant, “There was never anything so perilous or exciting as orthodoxy”. So, with the fear of God, with faith and love, I resolved to unbolt the door and allow the torrent to wash over me. I recall clearly one evening (still pre-Orthodoxy) in a moment of openness with Chance telling him, “You know Orthodoxy seems like a faith you could be consumed by, and that’s what I want, I want to be consumed!”
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10) Orthodoxy: A faith that one can be consumed by. Final Installment
This was perhaps the most intense, exciting and frightening time in my journey. Glory to God for Sara, this time would have been much more agonizing without her journeying along side me. When one of us was convinced, the other faced uncertainty, it was beautiful! The crux was that I was convinced spiritually that Orthodoxy was the best place to work out my salvation and sanctification. However, my head was filled with nagging doubts coming from many different sources. Friends, family and Anglican Clergy were all taking jabs at Orthodoxy. Not to mention the fact that my life long G.A.R.B. church-planting grandparents were already freaked out enough by Anglicanism. Was I taking my family to hell?
At the moment when I wanted to retreat back to the familiarity of Anglicanism, Orthodoxy’s onslaught did not let up with a penetrating liturgy, as we delved deeper we discovered an arsenal of weapons and tools prepared for a D-day-esque invasion. Saints and martyrs, askesis and ecstasy, Prayer ropes and the Jesus Prayer, fasting and feasting, birth and churching, baptism and chrismation, weddings and funerals, icon corners and house blessings, confession and penance, absolution and Eucharist. Orthodox Christianity shows up in every aspect of life and fills one at times to overwhelming levels. Not just Wednesday and Sunday, but truly all week, in your head, in your home, in your friends and your family, it is everywhere, and is therefore only to be had by those who would welcome such a consuming force.
What I had always longed for was now on my doorstep, and I had the bolt securely fastened. At this point Chesterton’s Orthodoxy was especially relevant, “People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum and safe.” Certainly, this was my defining of it as an Anglican. It wasn’t until Eastern Orthodoxy that I grasped more fully what he meant, “There was never anything so perilous or exciting as orthodoxy”. So, with the fear of God, with faith and love, I resolved to unbolt the door and allow the torrent to wash over me. I recall clearly one evening (still pre-Orthodoxy) in a moment of openness with Chance telling him, “You know Orthodoxy seems like a faith you could be consumed by, and that’s what I want, I want to be consumed!”
(0) comments
